20 Seconds Til the Last Call
by irelandrain74
Summary: The cast spends a night in Dublin; Lea gets a little drunk and figures out that hobbits need to stick together. One-shot, fill. Learren/Crisschele.


**A/N: Written as a shuffle ficlet challenge: you give me the pairing, I put my iTunes on shuffle and write a fiction! Song is "1901" by Phoenix - I don't own it or Glee. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy it - and please, let me know what you think and review!**

_"It's 20 seconds til the last call – you're going 'hey hey hey hey hey hey' – lie down, you know it's easy – like we did it over summer long – and I'll be anything you ask and more…"_

"You know Dublin is my seventh favorite city," Lea said, nodding vigorously.

"You would have your cities labeled out to seventh favorite," Chris snorted, rolling his eyes.

Darren just smiled. They were taking advantage of a night off on the tour, strolling through Dublin's Temple Bar, and he was being unusually quiet, just taking it all in. It was barely 55 degrees – despite it being the middle of summer – but the cobbled sidewalks were filled with people and music and life as the sun set, and – Chicago aside – it was his favorite place they'd been on tour so far.

They turned in at a bar with a bright blue door, with a live band playing traditional music, and most of the cast proceeded to get stupendously drunk. Ashley had spilled a Guinness all over herself and Chris. Cory had accidentally ordered mutton stew instead of beef. They were making pretty spectacular fools of themselves, really, but Darren was going easy – he'd started with a Harp, but quickly switched to Club Oranges, wanting to keep his head so he could do some night touring when they split up for the evening.

He was glad he'd eased up for the night as he watched Lea embrace cliché and down Irish car bomb after Irish car bomb at the counter with Diana. She was getting steadily more loud and slaphappy (she pretty much only stopped laughing to hiccup) and Darren found that he didn't feel guilty watching her at a time like this – no one could look away from a shiny-eyed, hysterical Lea Michele.

And then, as she was making her unsteady way to the bathroom, she acted like she was seeing him for the first time that evening – "oh, Darren, hi!" and, with a terribly faked stumble, fell into his lap.

And it wasn't like that was a bad thing. It was just, Lea Michele was suddenly wiggling around on his lap, the smell of Bailey's mixed with her fruity perfume and her big, dark eyes literally sparkling and her laughing lips so close to his jaw that he was immediately panicking and trying to find the easiest, safest way to get her off of him before he embarrassed himself in a serious way.

"Darren, Dublin is my seventh favorite city," she told him seriously, nodding just like she had earlier that night, this time cupping his face with both hands. "And seven is, like, my lucky number, and that means that if I was going to be anywhere when I do this, I'd want it to be here."

And while Darren was still trying to process her _deeply_ _romantic_ sentiment, she was suddenly kissing him a little bit, no, a lot, sloppy and hot and wet and gasping, her hands tearing at the neck of his t-shirt and he was trying to remind himself that she was drunk but failing spectacularly as he felt himself kissing her back, right there in front of all their cast mates and he could hear Cory whistling and Chris yelling "get it, girl!" and he tangled his hand up into the back of her hair and pulled her closer, not at all ashamed of the growl that ripped out of his throat.

He had to come up for air first – damn her superior lung capacity! – and as hard as it was, he held her back when she went in for it again. Held her back by the collarbone, yeah, and his thumbs might have been in the little valley between her – anyway, you couldn't blame him, and he did hold her back.

"Stop, Darren," she pouted, leaning forward anyway.

"No, you stop. You're drunk, Lea." He leaned closer to her, his voice low, trying not to let his cast mates hear. "I don't think you really want this."

"Yes I do!" She was loud, having no part of his whispering.

"Yeah, well, come see me when you're sober."

But by then it was becoming clear to him – looking around at his drunken friends – that someone was going to have to get her back to the hotel safely, and it probably wasn't going to be any of them. So he decided to take matters into his own hands.

"Come on, let's get you out of here."

She was all too eager, nodding and standing to let him up, then wrapping herself around his shoulder.

He nodded at the others as they inched out of the rowdy bar, checking to make sure there was someone sober enough to get them all home. Then they spilled out onto the street outside.

Lea sang, soft and wavery but still in key, as Darren tried to get a cab. It had started raining, hard, while they were inside, and the dark streets were thick with water. He eventually succeeded, and they slid into the leather seat, soaked through.

Darren walked Lea through the lobby and onto the elevator, ignoring the strange looks they received. When they arrived outside her room, he stood Lea up against the wall and asked her for her key.

"Oh, was I supposed to have that? Oooopss."

He groaned, realizing she wasn't even carrying her purse. "How did you think you were going to get back in your room?" he asked, exasperation showing in his voice.

"Dianaaaaa had it…."

Darren reached for his phone before remembering he didn't have international enabled right now. He gave a mighty sigh and gestured for Lea to take his shoulder again.

The first thing he did when they got to his room was shove Lea into his bathroom. "You're wet, you'll get sick if you don't change," he muttered. He pulled a t-shirt and a pair of sweats out of his suitcase and handed them to her.

He heard the shower go on in the other room as he changed and couldn't help but shudder a tiny bit that Lea Michele was naked with only a thin wall separating them, even if it was just because she was drunk and wet and locked out of her own room. It didn't help him any when she came out, his clothes hanging off her petite frame, her hair wet and wavy.

"I meant it, Darren," she said simply, then weaved her way over to the edge of one of the double beds and fell onto it, promptly passing out.

Darren watched her for a minute, decided he was being creepy, and then moved over to adjust the bed around her before crawling into the other bed and going out like a light himself.

When he woke up the next morning, Lea was perched by his pillow. "I like you, Darren Everett Criss," she said. "Sorry it took mixing liquor and beer to give me the courage to say so."

He blinked at her in disbelief for a minute before he pulled her down on top of him, kissing her with the sole intent of making her come up for air first.

**A/N: I don't usually do bookends, but I wanted to let you know I'm still accepting pairings for the shuffle challenge, either through PMing or my tumblr - irelandrain. Something different, more Learren - you name it, I'll try it. Love!**


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